Vows of the Heart

by Susan Fox

  ISBN 0-373-02763-X

  Harlequin Romance first edition May 1986

  Copyright © 1986 by Susan Fox.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9. All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  The Harlequin trademarks, consisting of the words HARLEQUIN ROMANCE and the portrayal of a Harlequin, are trademarks of Harlequin Enterprises Limited; the portrayal of a Harlequin is registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office and in the Canada Trade Marks Office.

  CLS 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in U.S.A.

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Veronica Spencer steered her rented car into a park­ing space for the handicapped, grateful to spot a tele­phone booth nearby. She switched off the engine, then rummaged in her purse for some change, which she then slipped into the pocket of her denim vest.

  Slowly, giving her stiff legs a chance to adjust to movement, she opened the door and eased herself out. Once on her feet, she braced a hand on the roof of the car for support while she leaned back in and pulled her crutches from the back seat. She positioned the cush­ioned pads beneath her arms and let the crutches take a share of her weight before she stepped aside and pushed the door closed.

  Veronica glanced around, deciding she found this par­ticular Cheyenne street unaccountably depressing. The faint smile on her soft mouth faded slightly as a gust of warm June wind blew a wisp of brown hair across trou­bled violet eyes. She was nervous enough about coming here without giving in to some imagined harbinger of doom. Veronica reminded herself that the only problem she was likely to encounter was her stepbrother, Cole Chapman.

  Taking the cautiously measured steps she had grown accustomed to, she moved to the sidewalk and headed toward the phone booth. Once inside she closed the door and took out a quarter. In moments the number was dialed, but in a fit of nervousness she hung up the phone before it could ring. The quarter dropped into the coin return, but she let it stay there.

  The past six months had been a nightmare of pain and loneliness and rejection. What if Henry Chapman— Hank—the closest she'd ever had to a real father, wasn't glad she'd come to see him? She hadn't spoken to him for several months and he hadn't answered the letters she'd sent.

  The reasons she'd given herself for Hank's neglect—he hated writing letters—seemed so flimsy now. Why hadn't she thought of that before she'd traveled more than 1,700 miles?

  Veronica forced herself to be calm. Surely her loving all-wise stepfather would have been able to read between the lines and discern how much she needed to see him after all that had happened.

  She pressed the coin return and dug out her quarter. Yes, she finally decided, he would have seen her need. She couldn't reconcile callousness with her knowledge of Henry Chapman. After all the years of her mother's ne­glect and the disruption caused by her several marriages and divorces, only Hank had seen through fourteen-year-old Veronica's adolescent facade of bad behavior. With a little patience and more loving attention than she'd known since her grandmother's death, Hank had trans­formed her from an obnoxious brat into someone who felt special and lovable.

  The man who'd possessed such wonderful qualities of gentleness and understanding wouldn't change toward her. Not now. Her mother's divorce from Hank had wrenched them apart when she'd packed up Veronica and moved to New York. But twice a year Henry Chapman had donned his dress Stetson and city clothes and flown to New York just to see her.

  The past year those visits had stopped because of his health. Veronica hadn't made it to Wyoming to see him, but they had kept in touch by phone as regularly as ever. Until six months ago. The last time she had spoken to Hank had been when he'd called to tell her he wouldn't be able to attend her wedding. The heart problem he'd had for years made the trip impossible.

  After her wedding and the accident, Veronica hadn't been physically able to call Hank, and after several weeks when she was able, she didn't have the nerve. Then, a couple of months ago when she finally started to climb out of the mire of self-pity, she wrote to him. A few days later she realized that a visit to the wisest and kindest man she'd ever known might help her pick up the pieces of her shattered existence. And now she was here.

  Veronica dropped the coin into the slot and dialed again. This time, she let it ring.

  Cole Chapman leaned back in the heavy swivel chair behind his desk and ran a tanned thickly callused hand through black hair overdue for a trim. The handsome arrangement of his facial features bore the sun-browned stamp of an outdoorsman, the fine wrinkles that fanned out from cobalt-blue eyes evidence of squinting into the sun. Deep grooves on each side of the grim set of his mouth hinted at happier times. As he reached back to massage stiff neck muscles, his eyes automatically sought the digital readout of the clock on his desk. It was half past eleven, but the time didn't register as his gaze slid to the photograph of his wife.

  As happened at odd times, Cole felt a fresh pang of heartache. Four years after the fatal brain aneurism that had wrenched her so permanently from his arms, he still mourned his wife, Jacqueline. So beautiful, so cheerful, so full of life, so. . . perfect. Suddenly impatient with himself, Cole's gaze veered to the other eight by ten inch wooden frame on his desk. As always, the picture of their son, Curtis, comforted him, swelling his heart with grat­itude that Jackie had left him with a child.

  The phone on the corner of the desk rang stridently in the silent room. Irritably he reached for the receiver.

  "Chapman Ranch."

  Veronica shivered. Some things never changed. Cole Chapman's gruff voice sounded just as harsh as ever.

  "Cole?" She hated the timidity in her voice, but she had long ago lost the ability to sound self-assured.

  "Yes. Who's this?"

  "It's Veronica." When she spoke this time, it was with a bit more confidence.

  "Veronica who?" There was a long silence as Veron­ica tried to harden herself to her stepbrother's relentless dislike.

  "Veronica Spencer."

  A low sarcastic chuckle came across the line.

  "So, the bad penny finally shows up. Did you decide to cash in on your gold mine?" Again he made the mirthless sound while Veronica puzzled over his remark. "I think you've waited long enough to prove to every­one you aren't the little mercenary your mother is. To everyone but me, however."

  Veronica swallowed hard at the insult, but didn't re­spond in kind. She had no idea what Cole was talking about and no desire to get into an argument.

  "I'm not interested in your money. I'm in Cheyenne and I want to see your father." Veronica clutched the phone nervously as silence stretched for several heart­beats.

  "I suppose it's better late than never," Cole finally answered. "You know where you can find him."

  "No, I don't know," she responded with brittle pa­tience. "Perhaps you wouldn't mind giving me a c
lue. You know I haven't been home. . . er here, for several years."

  "It's too bad you didn't stay away."

  Veronica pressed a trembling hand to her forehead as she tried to hold back the resurgence of unhappy mem­ories.

  "Please, Cole," she urged. "I know how you feel about me, but I just came to see your father." Tears welled in her eyes as she waited, wondering how she could have forgotten the depth of her stepbrother's hatred.

  "You remember which cemetery my mother is buried in, don't you?"

  "Yes."

  "That's where you'll find him."

  The line went dead and Veronica hung up the phone. Of course, she remembered. Hank had taken her there several times. He frequently made short visits to Marga­ret Chapman's grave, making certain it was kept up.

  Knowing she had to hurry or risk missing Hank, Veronica turned to leave the booth. Above all, she wouldn't go to the ranch unless Hank invited her. And when he did, Cole would have nothing to say about it.

  An hour later, the black desk phone at the Chapman Ranch rang again. Irritated by the thought it might be Ronnie calling back, Cole grabbed the receiver and snapped out a hello.

  "Cole?" The feminine voice at the other end of the connection was like Veronica's, but it wasn't. It was a voice that hadn't changed in eight years.

  "What do you want, Miriam?" Cole asked curtly.

  "Has Veronica contacted you yet?" The older wom­an's voice sounded anxious.

  "As a matter of fact, she did call. About an hour ago."

  "What did you tell her?"

  "I made it plain she isn't welcome here. The same goes for you." Cole had never liked his father's second wife. After Miriam left his father for a younger richer man, he had liked her even less, although he'd always counted it a blessing that she had taken her delinquent daughter back east with her.

  "Please listen to me, Cole." The feminine voice hesi­tated. "Veronica doesn't know about your father's death."

  "What do you mean she doesn't know?" Cole's stern face went tight with anger. What were the two of them pulling?

  "She doesn't know, Cole. It's a long complicated story."

  "Then shorten it," he ordered impatiently. "I've got work to do."

  "Oh, Cole." Miriam's voice trailed away into a sei­zure of sniffles and Cole muttered a curse. "About six months ago," the woman went on at last, "just the day before your father died, Veronica was involved in a very serious automobile accident." Miriam was nearly sob­bing now. "We-we didn't know for days if she'd even live, and when she did, she had so many problems that I couldn't bear—"

  "When were you planning on telling her?" Cole broke in, provoked by Miriam's everlasting irresponsibility.

  "She's had so many disappointments," Miriam wailed.

  "And she probably deserves every one of them." Cole felt almost no sympathy for either Miriam or her daugh­ter. "She can console herself with her share of the ranch." As much as he'd loved his father, it still galled him that Hank had willed Ronnie a one-quarter interest.

  "She's been hurt so badly," Miriam blubbered on. "She can barely walk."

  It took a few seconds for the nearly incoherent words to sink in. Cole's first thought was that Miriam was ex­aggerating.

  "Veronica's only been out of the rehabilitation center a few days," she continued. "I don't know where she got this foolish idea. I just came home and she was gone. Oh, Cole!" Miriam's voice was pleading and Cole felt his conscience being prodded.

  "Give me your phone number, Miriam," he growled, hating that he suddenly felt obligated to become in­volved. He scrawled the hastily given area code and number on a note pad. "I'll see what I can do."

  "Thank you, Cole, thank you—"

  Cole dropped the phone into the cradle, torn between his anger at the mother and a reluctant twinge of com­passion for the daughter.

  Veronica moved with care but unavoidable awkward­ness, the trembling in her weak legs making her even more unsteady. She was grateful for a distraction from her grief while the owner of the motel carried her lug­gage into a room. She handed him a small bill and watched as he left and pulled the door closed behind him.

  She couldn't cry yet. Not even the vivid memory of what she'd seen after her labor up the grassy incline to

  Margaret Chapman's grave released the tears. How long had she stood before the double headstone and stared at the date of death beneath Henry Chapman's name. An hour?

  Veronica moved tiredly to the drawer unit along the wall and methodically unwrapped a glass from its sani­tary wrapper. Her only stop between the cemetery and this motel had been a liquor store. Thanks to the man who'd carried her things from the car, the bottle of whiskey she'd purchased sat within reach along with the can of cola she'd bought from a machine in the motel office.

  Veronica seemed incapable of more than fragments of thought. Her whole being was engulfed by the grief she felt for a man everyone else had mourned months ago. She hadn't made a conscious connection between the date of Hank's death and the date of her own tragedy, yet her mind was reeling with a hundred questions she couldn't seem to concentrate on. All she knew was that the per­son she had needed to see for so long was gone. When Hank Chapman was alive, Veronica had always felt she had someone to come back to, a home, love. Now she was truly adrift. She was both saddened and terrified.

  Veronica remembered the whiskey she'd bought. She reached for the bottle, and with fingers that trembled twisted open the cap and splashed a too-generous amount of the amber liquid into the glass. Forgetting to add the cola, she raised her hand and forced herself to take the first sickening gulp, choking on the stinging bite that followed. She was not normally a drinker, but she needed desperately to dull the awful feeling that nothing good would ever happen in her life again.

  Cole walked quickly down the sidewalk that skirted the motel. He'd already checked out five other motels, but it was this one that had a Veronica Spencer regis­tered. According to the clerk, she'd been there for more than two hours. Cole had made a late start from the ranch, and when he found out she'd already left the cemetery he assumed she'd be at the airport. More time had been wasted there and still more while he and one of his men made the round of motels.

  When Cole reached number eight, he knocked. There was no sound from inside and no answer to his second knock. He turned the door knob on the off chance it wasn't locked, and the door swung inward. Stepping into the dimness, he waited for his eyes to adjust from the bright afternoon sunlight before he pushed the door closed, his blue gaze already fixed on the prone figure on the bed.

  As Cole crossed the room, uncertainty ripped through him. The girl lay nearly face down across the bed. A half-empty bottle and tumbled glass were on the floor below fingers that hung limply over the edge of the mattress. He wondered if there had been a mixup in the room num­ber.

  The shoulder-length hair was the same mink brown as the waist-length tresses Ronnie had worn as an adoles­cent, but he could not be sure it was her. Miriam had warned him that Ronnie was changed, and the pair of crutches propped against the chair were what he'd been led to expect. But as he looked down at the frail, too-thin body on the bed, it amazed him to think this was Veron­ica.

  Cole crouched low and gently brushed aside the smooth thick strands of hair that obscured the girl's face. Black streaks of mascara stained the unhealthy pallor of her cheeks, and her puffy reddened eyes were smudged with what remained of a bluish eye shadow.

  Cole was astonished. It was Veronica, but her face was a pale echo of the glowing natural beauty he remem­bered. Carefully he eased her onto her back and straightened her legs. She weighed almost nothing. Cole sat on the bed by her hip and automatically reached for her wrist to take her pulse. It was steady, but for a frac­tion of a second he'd feared the worst.

  Cole sat there for several moments more, staring at the physical changes eight years had wrought. He resisted the idea that Ronnie was any different from the spoiled, grasping little delinquent she had been. His disl
ike for her was still too intense for him to believe that.

  A wave of compassion rushed at the wall of rock that was his heart. The thought of taking Ronnie to the ranch for a few days to give her time to get over the shock en­tered his mind. He wouldn't have sent her to that ceme­tery if he'd had any idea she'd never been told of his father's death. For that he was truly sorry.

  But then common sense warned he would be letting himself in for endless problems if he did take her home. He had Curtis, his seven-year-old son, to consider. He­len, his sister-in-law, looked after Curtis in her home on the neighboring ranch during the day and would prob­ably be willing to keep him round the clock for two or three days. But did he want all their lives disrupted for Veronica? As long as she was at the ranch, he would have to give up precious time with his son. What kind of problems would he have with Ronnie? She did have a quarter interest in the ranch. What if she suddenly de­cided she wanted to stay and oversee that interest?

  Cole's lips thinned unpleasantly. If Miriam had had any backbone at all, she would have told Veronica about Hank's death months earlier and spared them all this. But as usual Miriam had thought of little more than making things easy on herself.

  Now Cole felt he was being saddled with the same problem his father had, more than ten years before. Hank had taken the impossible little Veronica on and had tried to give her the love and discipline her mother had been incapable of giving her. And not once had Hank voiced any regret. Cole had never understood that or the fact that his father had continued to think of Ronnie as a daughter, even after Miriam had divorced him and re­married.

  Veronica's head moved slightly on the pillow and a small moan of pain came from her lips. Her breathing had changed and Cole started to shake her gently, but she was too deeply asleep. He picked up the half-consumed bottle and examined it with faint disgust. It would be hours before she slept it off.

  Cole got up and walked into the bathroom. Taking a washcloth from the towel bar, he moistened it beneath the warm-water faucet before he returned to her bedside. As gently as possible, he wiped away the dark smudges of eye makeup, then studied the pale face he'd uncovered. Suddenly he pitched the washcloth across the room in anger.